It is common practice in the marketing of products by mail to provide a sheet of stamps depicting the products which the consumer may wish to order from the manufacturer or supplier and an associated self-mailer. The consumer may remove one or more of the stamps from the sheet of stamps provided, adhesively secure the stamps to designated areas of the self-mailer to order the products depicted on the stamps selected and then return the self-mailer to the manufacturer or supplier through the United States mail. Currently, the most common self-mailer is a postal card to which the consumer may affix the selected stamps to order the products the consumer desires.
The United States Postal Service processes postal cards by automated mail-handling equipment and has certain minimum standards or specifications which such postal cards must meet. Among these standards and specifications are certain minimum thickness and stiffness specifications.
Because of these stiffness and thickness specifications for postal cards, it has heretofore not been possible to print the postal cards and stamps in an integrated, single printing operation. Heretofore, the sheet of stamps has been processed and printed separately from the postal cards which are produced from thicker and stiffer stock materials than are the stamps. These separate operations have necessarily increased the cost of manufacture and handling of the advertising and promotional materials and have employed significant manual operations.
The United States Postal Service currently sells postage stamps in various ways, perhaps the most common of which is in books of stamps. These books of stamps have relatively thick and stiff outer covers which bear printed indicia identifying and advertising the postage stamps confined within the outer cover. These covers and the postage stamps therein are produced in separate forming and printing operations. The relatively thick and stiff covers are printed in a separate operation from the postage stamps, are cut to appropriate size and then manually assembled with the independently printed, cut and folded stamps. Most commonly, the covers and stamps are stapled together.
With the foregoing in mind, it is an object of the present invention to produce a self-mailer or a book of stamps which is capable of being produced in a single printing and assembling operation and which therefore overcomes the disadvantages and deficiencies of prior self-mailers or stamp books.
It is a more specific object of the present invention to provide a self-mailer with integral stamps or a book of stamps formed of a single sheet of uniform thickness commonly used in the production of stamps.